Multimodal Learning

Multimodal's Faculty FAQ

Student Support:

Q. Where should I send my students to get support for online learning technology I expect them to use in class?

• A. Additional information and guides for both new and continuing online student learning are available on the Online Learning webpage. Some questions regarding login errors, email support, and connectivity may need to be directed to the Service Desk. Please be prepared to accommodate students who are requesting leniency due to illness, technical issues and more. Clearly communicate opportunities and expectations around alternative online assignments or makeup work.

Q. Can I insist that a student use a specific technology (e.g. webcam, laptop, microphone)?

• A. Most students this quarter did not expect to become online students. Faculty need to be flexible and understanding of what students have access to. This is, in part, why we encourage asynchronous instruction over synchronous. Faculty should not punish students who do not have access to specific technologies and find creative means to engage and interact with all students enrolled in their classes.

Q: What is Total Activity?

• A: Total Activity allows you to see how long students interact within a course and counts page navigation only. Total activity time is displayed in hours:minutes:seconds. If a user has not yet reached an hour of activity, total activity time is displayed as minutes:seconds. Total Activity records any time spent viewing course content that exceeds two minutes. If the time between a new activity and the last completed activity is under ten minutes, all time between these two events will also be included. Total Activity does not include group activity or page views for videos that do not include intermediate page requests, such as a half-hour recorded lecture.

Panopto:

Q. Why can’t my students see my videos? Why am I getting permission requests from my students

• A. By default, only students enrolled in the course and term in which videos are stored can watch those videos. You can change the permissions for videos either individually or the entire course folder (not personal folders) by following the steps outlined in this video. We recommend switching the permissions from “Specific people” to “Anyone at the organization with the link”. If you’ve stored the videos in a personal folder, you must change the permission for each video individually or move them to the correct course folder (video).

Kaltura:

Q. What is Kaltura? How is it related to My Media or Media Gallery in Canvas?

• A. Kaltura is the company that provides the media streaming service. It's the umbrella name for both My Media and Media Gallery.

Q. What is the difference between My Media and Media Gallery? Do I need to enable both in my Canvas course?

• A. My Media is your personal media gallery that is not associated with a course. Everyone at CWU, including your students, has their own space for videos and audio uploads using this. Media Gallery is the shared "folder" for uploaded videos for each course. You can share videos from My Media to Media Gallery by publishing them to the course or you can directly upload to Media Gallery to share them with your students.

Q. Can I just use Youtube to upload and share my videos?

• A. Youtube uses tracking, advertising and other data mining tactics that impact viewer privacy. We do not advise subjecting your students to Youtube’s privacy and security practices in order to view your instruction. We use Kaltura (My Media/ Media Gallery) because it is not public, does not invade viewer privacy and is completely supported by the Multimodal staff.

Blackboard Ultra:

• A. The sheer volume of internet traffic is making bandwidth communication difficult. If you absolutely must conduct instruction synchronously, we recommend asking participants to only use audio and NOT video (and if you don’t need to be viewed, turn off yours as well). Students can watch and listen by smartphone using their phone’s browser, which may proivde a better experience. Also, if possible, conducting courses during times that are less busy (early morning or late afternoon) may see improvement. If your connection is slow, it will be difficult to conduct synchronous video conferences.

• A. It takes a while to process especially under these circumstances, up to 24 hours.

Q. How do I get a list of attendees to my Blackboard Ultra sessions? Can I see which of my students attended my courses in Ultra?

• A. Yes, you can pull up a Session Report for any of your Ultra sessions. Listed in that report are the people who attended as well as how long they were in the sessions. In the Blackboard Ultra tab in your Canvas course, select the three dots to the right of the session of interest. Then select "View Reports." You should see all of the sessions that have been held and you can click on "View Report" under the Attendees column to see the attendees of individual meetings.

Zoom:

Q. I have technical support questions about Zoom?

• A. Multimodal does not provide support for Zoom. Feel free to use it but please reach out to the Help Desk for Zoom support.

Respondus/ Lockdown Browser

Q. My student claims they can't use LockDown Browser on their Chromebook. What should I do?

• A. The LockDown Browser does not work on Chromebooks. If you want to only excuse the Chromebook-owning students from using the LockDown Browser, you will need to make a copy of the test and assign it just to those students. You will also want to ‘Excuse’ them from the quiz that does require LockDown Browser.

1. Use Direct Share to copy the course within the same Canvas course.

2. Type EX inside the gradebook cell you wish to excuse for the student and it will not calculate that assignment in their final grade.

Consider removing the LockDown Browser requirement for all students and using alternative types of quiz restrictions instead. Please read the full discussion on mazximizing security using quiz settings.